Page 34 of Love Me Forever

“You said I’d live with you.” She folded her arms.

“You’re going to live with both of us.”

“I don’t want a nanny.” She folded her arms.

Sébastien tilted his head. “He’s not a nanny. He’ll be my husband when we get married, and we’ll both raise you.”

“Yes, he is a nanny.”

Why don’t you like nannies?” Since her Mama had been single and working, and Éloïse had gone with her, what experience with a nanny would she have?

“Nannies are evil.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Mama read me The Prince’s Big Adventure a lot of times. It had lots of pictures. She said rich people might be too busy, so they have a person who lives there and takes care of the kid.”

“Ah.” Something in her mind had been twisted along the way, although he wasn’t quite sure what. “Why do you think Remus is the nanny? Why wouldn’t Milly be the nanny? She’s not royalty.”

“You said she’s the cook, and you can’t be a cook and a nanny,” she declared.

“What’s this Prince’s Big Adventure? Why don’t you tell me that story? I don’t know it.”

Éloïse got into his lap to tell him. The Prince was a little boy who lived in a big Castle, and his Dad, the King, was often busy doing King stuff according to her. The nanny was a big, evil man who made a lot of rules like no jumping on the bed. Whenever the Prince did something wrong, the nanny would rage at him no matter how small it was.

“He looked like this.” Éloïse put her forefingers over her eyes, tilted them down, and opened her mouth like she was snarling. “‘I said no jumping on the bed!’”

“The book had a picture of this?”

“Yeah. The nanny was really big, and when he got angry, he’d yell at the Prince and get even bigger. The Prince tried telling his Dad that the nanny was really mean. He didn’t listen, and when the Prince did poorly at lessons, the nanny made him write lines. He had to write, ‘I’m a really bad boy’ over and over for ages until his hand was all hurt. One day, the nanny said he was tired of the Prince for not following rules, so he took him to the woods and left him there for panthers to eat.”

This was definitely not a book Sébastien would be buying for her as a bedtime story.

“And then, he was lost, and evil humans found him. They were going to put him in a pot and cook him for dinner, but the King realized his son was missing. He found him before the humans could eat him, and saved him. He finally believed his son, so they put the nanny in the pot instead and went back home.”

“What happened after that?”

“The King said he would never leave his son with a nanny again, and they lived happily ever after. The Prince still couldn’t jump on the bed.”

Sébastien leaned back in his chair. “Uh-huh.” What the fuck?

Plenty of rich people had nannies to watch the kids because they were busy. Or they said they were. Mother had never had an issue with caring for the kids. Sébastien only remembered a trusted servant watching him at times because he’d been too little to sit at the High Table and eat with proper manners. Once he’d been passable enough, he’d eaten meals with the rest of the family.

Some commoners thought nannies were silly. If a commoner could take care of five children, keep house, and even work a farm, why couldn’t higher-ups or those with money deal with a few kids too? Clearly, some like Margot disapproved of foisting their children onto another to watch and care for them. The author of The Prince’s Big Adventure must have felt the same, and while the story was likely meant to be funny in a way, it was kind of morbid.

“First of all, I don’t call being kidnapped by humans and put into a pot for their dinner a big adventure.”

“But they chased him all over,” said Éloïse.

“Mmm.” That sounded terrifying. “Second of all, Remus is not a nanny. Most kids have two parents unless something happens to one. Didn’t you notice that from other kids?”

“But I didn’t. I had one parent.”

“I once had a Mother and a Father. A child might have two Mothers or two Fathers. I don’t know what happened in your Mama’s earlier life, but someone, er…” The last thing he was about to do was explain how babies were made to a five-year-old. “You had another parent. We just don’t know where he is. Your Mama will always be your Mother, but now that you’re my daughter, you’re also Remus’s daughter. You have two parents now. Not one parent and a nanny.”

She squinted at him. “Mama said rich people have nannies because they can ‘ford it.”

“Afford it. I could afford a nanny for you. I’m not getting one. Remus and I will raise you, and Remus will never be like that man in the story. I know he’s quite large, and maybe that seems scary to you. I promise he will never yell at you, and he will never take you away to put you in the woods. There was a time when I was in danger, and Remus saved me. I would never marry a big man who yells and puts little girls or boys in the woods to be eaten by panthers.”

---